Virginwines apologies for failure to deliver

Published: 23 July, 2008

South-West London worst hit

Virginwines.com has apologised and refunded delivery charges for failing to deliver on time its recent "buy-one-get-one-free" (BOGOF) promotion in certain areas. Chris Mitchell, Virginwines' marketing and PR director told Harpers: "We hold our hands up and admit we got it wrong. We have now upsized our delivery arrangements." He claimed that 95% of the promotional cases with a free "welcome case" arrived within the stipulated time but that their distributors could not cope with London orders and South-West London in particular. "By this weekend we will have cleared the backlog. Volumes shot up and the promotion did fantastically well but we were stretched."

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Laura Knight, Virgin Wines' business development director and co-founder of Orgasmic Wines, is leaving to set up a chain of bar restaurants. Knight told Harpers: "It is all very amicable. This is something I wanted to do and I like running my own show. "I have two friends as partners who have a lot of expertise in the on-trade. I will provide the drive, management skills and loads of enthusiasm." Knight described the concept as "drinks-led, serving food." The first site is likely to be in her home town, Norwich. Reluctant to be specific about the concept and when the first will open, she said: "London is crowded so we will start with my home patch. We will be small, nimble players and we have the advantage over the large operators of being able to rearrange and adapt." She leaves Virgin at the end of January with the team being "re-jigged" to take over Knight's responsibilities.